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Ilium

(Ilium #1)

Dan Simmons

4.03 · Rating details · 27,129 ratings · 1,168 reviews

The Trojan War rages at the foot of Olympos Mons on Mars—observed and influenced from on high by Zeus and his immortal family—and twenty-first-century professor Thomas Hockenberry is there to play a role in the insidious private wars of vengeful gods and goddesses. On Earth, a small band of the few remaining humans pursues a lost past and devastating truth—as four sentient ...more

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Mass Market Paperback, 731 pages

Published June 28th 2005 by HarperTorch (first published 2003)

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Jun 15, 2009 J.G. Keely rated it it was ok

Shelves: science-fiction, reviewed, abandoned

I love the idea of a throwback, an author who takes cues from classics and puts a new spin on them. Mieville took rollicking pulp and updated it, Susanna Clarke made fairy tales and the Gothic novel sing for a modern audience--but if you're going to adopt a bygone style, take only the best, and leave the dross.

By all means, copy Howard's verve and brooding, but skip the sexist titillation. Copy Lovecraft's cosmic horror, but skip the racist epithets. Dan Simmon's Ilium feels like 50's sci fi fo ...more

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May 08, 2012 Clouds rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: locus-sci-fi, science-fiction, pub-2000s, 5-star, reviewed, science-fiction-series

Christmas 2010: I realised that I had got stuck in a rut. I was re-reading old favourites again and again, waiting for a few trusted authors to release new works. Something had to be done.

On the spur of the moment I set myself a challenge, to read every book to have won the Locus Sci-Fi award. That’s 35 books, 6 of which I’d previously read, leaving 29 titles by 14 authors who were new to me.

While working through this reading list I got married, went on my honeymoon, switched career and beca ...more

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Oct 21, 2013 seak rated it it was amazing

Shelves: audio, books-i-own-to-read, 2014, arc-review

If someone were to describe this book to me (if they even could), I don't know if I would believe how much I absolutely enjoyed it. Dan Simmons is a mad genius.

Shakespeare-quoting humanoid robots, Greek Gods, post-humans, and old-style humans somehow make the craziest awesome story imaginable.

Ilium is a story told through essentially three unrelated viewpoints. First, there's Hockenberry. This is told in first person. Hockenberry is called a "Scholic," a human from our the 20th century (our time If someone were to describe this book to me (if they even could), I don't know if I would believe how much I absolutely enjoyed it. Dan Simmons is a mad genius.

Shakespeare-quoting humanoid robots, Greek Gods, post-humans, and old-style humans somehow make the craziest awesome story imaginable.

Ilium is a story told through essentially three unrelated viewpoints. First, there's Hockenberry. This is told in first person. Hockenberry is called a "Scholic," a human from our the 20th century (our time) who was rebirthed in a future where Homer's Trojan War is being fought. His job is to report on the war ... to the Greek Gods.

At first, this is completely confusing. Why? is a question I asked myself over and over, but it begins to make sense with time. Plus, it's hard not to be fascinated with the events of the Iliad. It's also impressive how much research went into it, though that's only an assumption since my knowledge of the Trojan War is essentially from the movie, Troy (but I have read the Odyssey!).

The second viewpoint is the humans, mainly Daemon. Daemon is a self-involved fool who is unlikeable to say the least. But who wouldn't be when you have everything handed to you on a silver platter by robots called servitors (sp - I did listen to the audio so forgive me), like all humans everywhere. Pleasure is their life, knowledge ... is lacking.

The third viewpoint is that of a sonnet-loving humanoid robot called a "moravec" and named Mahnmut. Specifically, and only, Shakespeare's sonnets. It's work consists of exploring the moon of Jupiter called Europa. Mahnmut is called in on a mission with a group of moravecs to explore some occurrences on the planet mars.

At first, I was highly entertained, though confused, with the events of the Trojan war and the other parts were just above boring. Slowly, the story takes hold and it had me hook, line, and sinker.

Listening to the audiobook, I was looking forward to my morning and evening drives and not too sad to do errands on my lunch hour either. Somehow, it ALL makes sense even though it sounds like the oddest collection of classics to make up a cohesive story all its own. What does Shakespeare have to do with the Iliad or Proust (his work makes appearances too) for that matter, all set in the future with technology that gives humans everything they ever want or need?

It's crazy I tell ya. Crazy! How did I like this book this much? I'm telling you, Simmons is a mad genius. I will just sit back and let him take me on his journey. It's amazing. I question not.

Kevin Pariseau is the narrator of this audiobook and while at first I thought he over-acted the part of Hockenberry, though somehow not the other parts, I really grew to like him and found out that it was literally just the character of Hockenberry that he was playing. And it's impressive given how many Greek words and names he's got to ...erm... name.

The only problem is that Ilium is only half the story. It stops at a huge cliffhanger and I'm already heading to Olympos to see how this ends.

5 out of 5 Stars (Mind ... blown) ...more

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Nov 11, 2020 Baba rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: scifi

After reading Hyperion, you can't but help thinking that as far as sci-fi goes Simmons is in a class of his own, and this offering Ilium does not let the reader down. Once again a book deeply entrenched with classical history and literature as it's centred around Homer's The Iliad of Homer and William Shakespeare's The Tempest, and when I say centred I mean a 20th century historian is revived to oversee the Iliad and see how match it matches Homer's poem, for hie employers, the classical Greek g ...more

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Feb 15, 2017 Simona B rated it it was ok

Shelves: 2000, in-english, science-fiction

~ 15/02/17
I've only read one chapter but I can already tell the writing is so unbelievably brilliant. Insta-love for me.

~ 18/03/17
•I'm a little past page 100 and the writing is still brilliant, but all the rest isn't doing it for me -sure enough I've only been able to read 100 pages in 30 days. I've no doubt the world-building is complex and thought-out, but nothing is explicitly explained and the reader is supposed to glean all the information from the story itself as it unfolds; normally I wou ...more

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Dec 28, 2010 Jonathan rated it it was amazing

"Literary science fiction". One of the words in this phrase struggles and strains against the other two like an 18-month old who doesn't want to be picked up. It doesn't want to be associated with a genre that often is long on ideas and short on quality prose and sharp and distinct style. It often succeeds in escaping the pull of science fiction's weak gravity. Occassionaly, an author creates a story that is so dense that the word is held in place in an unstable orbit. Ultimately many of those f "Literary science fiction". One of the words in this phrase struggles and strains against the other two like an 18-month old who doesn't want to be picked up. It doesn't want to be associated with a genre that often is long on ideas and short on quality prose and sharp and distinct style. It often succeeds in escaping the pull of science fiction's weak gravity. Occassionaly, an author creates a story that is so dense that the word is held in place in an unstable orbit. Ultimately many of those fail under their own weight and implode into the speculative fiction black hole. Rarely, very rarely, O Muse, an author has the incredible imagination, literary style and guts to weave together a story with just the right mix of literary competence, adventure, science and kickassedness to balance needed to sustain the phrase. Dan Simmons did it with Hyperion with inhuman aplomb.

And yes, he does it again with Ilium. It's freaking awesome.

While Hyperion gave us a structure loosely based on the classic Chauceresque frame story, Ilium is straight up Homeric Trojan War. On Mars. With robots from Jupiter obsessed with Shakespeare and Proust. With the Greek gods and quantum teleportation. On Mars. Oh and dinosaurs. We take in a lot of the action from the point of view of a formelly dead scholar. Oh yes, Simmons has taken his favourite weapon of intertextuality and speared himself doosy.

I have yet to read how Sai Simmons came up with this idea but I would not be shocked if it involved a bet and a half-empty bottle of whiskey. I can just imagine him waking up on the bathroom floor in the morning with some indecpherable napkin notes ending with the phrase "good luck with that". Stack on top of this Achillian challenge three seemingly unrelated plot lines that span the solar system and you have what I like to call, the unpossible.

But that's what makes this book so good. Simmons takes the unpossible and shapes it with Zeus like vision into something that I read in a little over a week, smiling the entire time. The pace will have you gasping in the thin air of Olympus Mons.

There is absolutely no way I can give this less than 5 stars considering the pure effort it must have required to conjure up this opus and for the resulting amusement park for your brain. However, if I had any critique, it might be the same as I had for the Fall of Hyperion and it's only in (an unfair) comparison to their predecessor: many characters in Hyperion are so unique and familiar that it's difficult if not impossible to reproduce that feeling in subsequent works. I did identify with Hockenberry fairly well though and even with the damn robots.
To continue my theme from my review of Carrion Comfort, five Dan Simmons books into it and I can say he remains at the top of my list. ...more

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May 05, 2018 Cathy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Update: After thinking about the book for three weeks and comparing it with the other books read and ratings given this month AND despite my misgivings about the beginning and not really liking the parts about the Greeks all that much, I decided to upgrade the rating to a full five stars. The scope of the book was just so great, it really deserves the highest rating.

*~*~*~*
I did not enjoy the first 50 pages or so. I was confused and wondering what was going on. I though I would DNF this, before ...more

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Dec 15, 2008 Jayaprakash Satyamurthy rated it liked it

Shelves: science-fiction

Most excellent.

I like SF, and I like much of what gets lumped under the rather stuffy title 'classic literature'. Clearly, so does Dan Simmons. Set in a very distant future, long after both AI and posthumans have merged, this novel contains three main storylines, all of which ventually intersect.

First, there's a group of languid, pleasure-seeking old-style humans living on old earth, all their needs taken care of by mechanical servitors left for them, presumably, by the posthumans. Upon comple ...more

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Apr 17, 2020 Chris Berko rated it it was amazing

Readers, Assemble! and go get this book and read it. Seriously, this is a book lovers paradise. It is a science fiction/fantasy mash-up of the Iliad and Odyssey but also with two other totally awesome and original story lines that at first seem like they have fuck all to do with one another until all the tiny pieces start to click and you see how vast Simmons' imagination is and how well he plots. A book this length usually would take me about four or five days, I'm a severe insomniac and pretty ...more

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May 03, 2012 Jake rated it liked it

My review of Ilium in a nutshell:
“I liked it?”

AMBISHUN: DAN SIMMONS HAZ IT.

I’m not sure if it is possible to be too ambitious when creating a plot for a novel, but Dan Simmons seems to be on a mission to find out. There are concepts, there are high concepts, and there are Dan Simmons concepts.

When it’s time for Simmons to begin a new novel, I picture something like this:

Dan Simmons is smoking a pipe (made from the bones of an aurochs), deep in the bowels of Stately Simmons Manor. Inspiration ...more

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Sep 25, 2018 Monica rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: kindle_scifi_fan, pub_2000s, puppy-squishers, audible, favorites, scifi-spaceopera, series-aargh

OK, mad props to Dan Simmons!! Bravo!! This man is brilliant and cheeky. Bold and irreverent. And humor in the oddest of places. I swear if I didn't know better I'd say this book was written on a dare. I mean honestly "What the heck did I just read" (er…listen to)!! This was everything in the kitchen sink of scifi!! The world building was amazing and genre blending? Yes please!! Did you want to read a book about Greek mythology? How about a story about the retelling of The Iliad? Complete with G OK, mad props to Dan Simmons!! Bravo!! This man is brilliant and cheeky. Bold and irreverent. And humor in the oddest of places. I swear if I didn't know better I'd say this book was written on a dare. I mean honestly "What the heck did I just read" (er…listen to)!! This was everything in the kitchen sink of scifi!! The world building was amazing and genre blending? Yes please!! Did you want to read a book about Greek mythology? How about a story about the retelling of The Iliad? Complete with Greek Gods and a 21st century scholar roaming around as a slave trying to change history? A scholar who has died of cancer in 2143. Oh, but then there are also the AI's that are fully sentient and have a civilization that has colonized the moons of Jupiter. There are rogue robots called servitors meant to service humans but something has run amok! A dying human race with bored teenagers looking for excitement, eternal life and a chance to catch a glimpse of the post humans. An orbital ring that supposedly houses the "post humans" but is really a house of horrors run by characters from Shakespeare's The Tempest. Oh and there is an intrepid old lady that knows secrets ala "Murder She Wrote" and is taking the teenagers on an adventure. And yes, there are aliens, LGM-little green men!! I'm telling you he was at a bar and someone dared him to create a novel with several random elements elicited from a crowd of drunks. Sort of like improvisation at a hookah lounge. And guess what?!? It was good!! It was really good!! I have no idea what I just read, but I am up for reading the sequel. I do think knowledge of the Iliad will help with understanding, but not as much as one would think. One person's review labeled Simmons as a mad genius. I couldn't have said it better. Not as good as Hyperion but this dude has writing chops and chutzpah!!

4+ Stars

Listened to the audiobook. It's over 29 hours long and I was looking forward to it every time I got in the car or took my puppy for a walk. Kevin Pariseau was excellent as the narrator!! ...more

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Feb 19, 2020 Patrick rated it really liked it

Shelves: sci-fi

This was a fun read! Combine the Greeks and Trojans in the Iliad, aliens, space travel, dinosaurs, war, and AI then you've got Ilium! This was such a new and great twist to the story we all know and love! ...more

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Feb 06, 2015 David rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Quantum-tunneling gods, orbital Calibans, Shakespeare-loving robots

Shelves: audiobook, war, post-human, science-fiction, gods, mars, doorstopper, greek-myths, robots

A fantastic sci-fi epic in the tradition of Simmons's Hyperion Cantos. In Ilium, as in the Hyperion books, Simmons really shows off his knowledge of classical literature. He obviously knows the Iliad and the Odyssey inside and out, but the author (through his characters) also fills this book with literary and historical references to Shakespeare, Proust, and a dozen other sources. It's ingenious and it made me to resolve to finally get around to reading the Iliad myself once I've finished this s ...more

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Dec 19, 2014 Anthony Ryan rated it it was amazing

Masterly far-future sci-fi epicness from Dan Simmons. Thousands of years into Earth's future the human population has stagnated into a contented form of indulgent immortality; no-one dies and no-one goes hungry, but also no-one really does anything more interesting than take part in the occasional sex party or get eaten by a cloned Allosaur. Meanwhile a present-day historian has been resurrected on Mars, apparently at the whim of the ancient Greek gods in order to act as observer to the siege of ...more

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Sep 10, 2007 James Williams rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: people who think that the Trojan war with nanites sounds like fun

According to the cover for Ilium, it was nominated for the Hugo Novel of the Year in 2004. It absolutely deserved it. It also didn't win, and it deserved that as well.

Don't get me wrong. It's a great book and I loved reading it (indeed, this was the second time I read it and I think I enjoyed it more the second time). It's really three stories all happening in different places in the solar system at the same time, inevitably approaching one another. It's rare to find a book tries this and does ...more

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Nov 27, 2018 Rachel (Kalanadi) rated it really liked it

Shelves: science-fiction

HECK. That was intense.

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Jul 24, 2012 Scott Rhee rated it it was amazing

Shelves: science-fiction

I can't seem to say enough in the way of praise for Dan Simmons. The guy is a frickin' genius and one of the best writers working in any genre today.

"Ilium" is his science fiction magnum opus. It is a grand epic in the same way Tolkein's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy and Frank Herbert's "Dune" series were grand epics in their genre. The funny thing is Simmons's "Ilium" is a sci-fi epic ABOUT one of the greatest epics of all time, Homer's "The Iliad". Well, it's not so much about "The Iliad" as it I can't seem to say enough in the way of praise for Dan Simmons. The guy is a frickin' genius and one of the best writers working in any genre today.

"Ilium" is his science fiction magnum opus. It is a grand epic in the same way Tolkein's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy and Frank Herbert's "Dune" series were grand epics in their genre. The funny thing is Simmons's "Ilium" is a sci-fi epic ABOUT one of the greatest epics of all time, Homer's "The Iliad". Well, it's not so much about "The Iliad" as it is a very strange and wonderful re-imagining of the greatest epic poems in Western Civilization.

The book is hard to describe, but here goes my attempt at explaining it: In the distant future (it is very unclear how distant), the planet Mars has been taken over by the Greek gods. Zeus, Hera, Aphrodite, Apollo, et al live on their new Mount Olympus, appropriately located on the peaks of Olympus Mons. Not only that, but the ancient city of Troy, along with all its Trojan citizens, as well as all the Greek warriors, led by Agammemnon, Menelaus, and Achilles, have been miraculously resurrected to play out the entire 10-year Trojan War. Again.

Strangely enough, 20th-century college professor Thomas Hockenberry has also been resurrected (along with other scholars) to report to the gods on how accurately the participants of this Martian re-creation are adhering to the original. Having no clue as to how (or even why) he has been resurrected along with the others, frustrated Hockenberry decides to switch things up and "interfere" in the classic story.

Meanwhile, the few remaining human survivors (roughly 3,000+) on Earth are blissfully unaware of what's happening on the neighboring planet until some curiosity-filled Earthlings decide to find out where all the other billions of Earthlings went, who (or what) keeps providing them with a continuous source of food and shelter, and why they only have a 100-year life expectancy, no more and no less.

Then a 600+ year-old woman named Savi shows up, claiming to remember the days when the world was filled with people, and she introduces the Earthlings to a friend of hers, an even older gentleman who calls himself Odysseus. There's also a pair of Shakespeare-and Proust-quoting robots from Jupiter's moons who arrive on Mars, investigating some strange readings that would indicate the existence of a presence more powerful than anything they have ever studied before. Unfortunately, they are shot down by one of Zeus's lightening bolts, and immediately rescued by hundreds of adorable mute LGMs (Little Green Men).

I know it all sounds strange, and I'd be lying if I said it wasn't, but it's one of those books that sucks you in and never lets up. A grand and weird blend of space opera, fantasy, hard science fiction, humor, and literary criticism, "Ilium" is definitely one of the best and most original science fiction novels I have read in a long time.

Nominated for a Hugo, "Ilium" is the first of a series, continued in the second book "Olympos".
...more

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Jan 13, 2019 Mark Tallen rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

Stunning, an utterly brilliant novel, this is one of my very favourite novels to date. After reading the Hyperion/Endymion books by Dan Simmons and being blown away by them, I went into reading Ilium with an attitude of, 'well Ilium and the sequel Olympos, both have a lot to live up to'. Well, guess what, Ilium is a masterpiece in my opinion and it did live up to those high expectations. I absolutely loved this book, the pages flew by and I was completely immersed in the novel. The storytelling ...more

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Mar 12, 2011 Stephanie rated it it was amazing

Prepare to have mind blown.

I like dense reads, and I like immersing myself in complex worlds created by brilliant minds... but never, NEVER have I read a more astonishingly complex novel. 1/2 the way through this gigantic mind bender I was still completely without a clue about what was going on in the book. The fact that I and so many others rate this book so highly tells you a little something about our Mr. Simmons and the quality of his writing. Who get's away with this?? Nobody does... excpet ...more

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Sep 15, 2011 Becky rated it really liked it

Shelves: scifi

Hands down the best scifi that I’ve read in the last ten years. This was the first time that I’d read Dan Simmons and I was floored by the depth of his characters, the complexity of his plot, and the intricate and fascinating world(s) he created. I personally liked the feeling over never really knowing more than any of the characters. I enjoyed the mystery of being on level with the characters, unsure of what would come next. Nothing about this is a light read. The book treats you like an adult ...more

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Dec 18, 2019 Kara Babcock rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: posthuman, artificial-intelligence, science-fiction, 2019-read, from-library, post-apocalyptic

Longtime readers of my reviews will recall I have a tumultuous relationship with Dan Simmons’ books. I didn’t like The Terror or Drood , but I warmed up to Simmons through his epic Hyperion Cantos. In my review for the final book of that cycle, The Rise of Endymion , I commented, “Even if you don’t like the series, it is hard to dispute the scope and style of it.” Simmons lives up to this judgment with Ilium, which does for the Iliad what Hyperion did for Keats and Romantic poetry (alt ...more

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May 19, 2010 Nicholas Armstrong rated it did not like it

A book should not be hard to read. To pick up a book, and to read the words and enjoy them should not be hard, it should just be. Reading this book was hard. Every moment I normally would pick up a book to read a little I would pick up this, and every time I did not look forward to it.

It baffles me; I could have sworn that I enjoyed Hyperion and that it was well-written, could I have been so wrong? This was not enjoyable, it was not well-written, and it was so hugely disappointing.

700 pages is A book should not be hard to read. To pick up a book, and to read the words and enjoy them should not be hard, it should just be. Reading this book was hard. Every moment I normally would pick up a book to read a little I would pick up this, and every time I did not look forward to it.

It baffles me; I could have sworn that I enjoyed Hyperion and that it was well-written, could I have been so wrong? This was not enjoyable, it was not well-written, and it was so hugely disappointing.

700 pages is a lot to ask of a person, especially when the story is divided into what could be three books and each book filled with characters who are not in the slightest interesting or fleshed out. What bothers me most is the gods and the heroes of the Iliad. This was my chance to see some characterization of all my favorite mythological badasses and it failed so astoundingly. Diomedes, my favorite character from the Iliad, is nothing more than a spear or a weapon, and the only descriptions of him are as a bumbling greedy oaf. Odysseus is a bulky, bear of a man who seems neither cunning nor clever, and most of the characters seem rather monstrous. At least in the Homeric versions there is no authorial opinion given for actions, just statements of fact. If Jason (who was a total douche) wanted to love and leave women then he could damn well do it without the writer telling us what a dick he was, all of the characters here are colored by perspectives I don't care about and find rather frustrating.

Ultimately, it felt as if Simmons wanted to show off what he had studied, not a story or characters or any of the things that I tend to like in a book. 350 loooong pages into the book nearly nothing has happened. There is lots of posturing and pondering but very, very, little has progressed the story forward. It is as if most of the novel is filler, Simmons just plugging away to fill some page quota. Additionally, and more irritatingly, the prose is awful, really just awful. Adverbs are awesome, but I don't need them for something that is obvious, dammit. Typing DO NOT DISOBEY ME in caps and bold makes me believe Zeus is angry, you don't have to follow it with, 'Zeus bellowed angrily'. Seriously, it is like a high school paper. Every event is reiterated and things pointed out earlier are reiterated again, as if I couldn't just look it up if I forgot something.

This is a jumbled mess of showboating and condescension (or at least underestimation) of the audience and I can no more tolerate it from an author I thought I liked than by one I know I do not. ...more

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Jul 22, 2007 Mark rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: sci-fi fans, literature fans

The Iliad serves as the starting point here ("Sing, O Muse, of the rage of Achilles..."), and from there Dan Simmons proceeds to amaze you with some of the most literate science fiction you'll ever read. The story unfolds in three parts, which are skillfully woven together to increase dramatic tension as the plot lines spiral closer to each other. The end of Ilium is a soft stop, there is some closure but it leaves much open for the next book Olympos.

The science fiction is the good stuff that s ...more

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Mar 10, 2020 Greg at 2 Book Lovers Reviews rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi-fantasy, greco-roman-historical-fiction, 2020

Can a science fiction book set in the future, also be an alternate history story at the same time?

Dan Simmons likes to take on some monolithic challenges. Ilium starts off with three separate story-lines. I know they are going to come together, they have to come together, what would be the point if they don’t come together. The true beauty of this story is how they come together.

I went for Ilium based on my love of Homer’s epics. Just tell me you’re going to build your world around that, and I a ...more

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Jan 10, 2017 Ana rated it did not like it

Shelves: supernatural, no

Was there ever a more tedious read?? I have been meaning to read Hyperion and Ilium for a while now, and since I am a huge fan of Ancient Greece, I decided to start with Ilium. Perhaps that was a mistake, as I was so disappointed that I don't think I want to read Hyperion or anything else by Simmons ever again.

The story sounded interesting when I read the description, but the book just killed it for me. There are three storylines which will eventually overlap: one with some humans on a post-apo Was there ever a more tedious read?? I have been meaning to read Hyperion and Ilium for a while now, and since I am a huge fan of Ancient Greece, I decided to start with Ilium. Perhaps that was a mistake, as I was so disappointed that I don't think I want to read Hyperion or anything else by Simmons ever again.

The story sounded interesting when I read the description, but the book just killed it for me. There are three storylines which will eventually overlap: one with some humans on a post-apocalyptic earth, one with Trojan war raging on Mars, and one with few robots on a mission to Mars.

The world building seemed very interesting, and I was looking forward to learning more about it. But the characters all feel very undeveloped. They are annoying and I just kept wishing them dead and gone. The humans are bland and dull, and the most sympathetic characters are actually the robots. But all they ever do is talk about Shakespeare and Proust. Like, a lot. In detail. Too much detail. All the fucking time.

I bravely read on, hoping it will be good, hoping I was wrong, but then the Trojan war storyline just blew me away. In a negative sense. There is this scholar guy who is brought back from the dead to observe the war and report to the gods what's happening, as they apparently have no idea what will happen in the future. Fine. So that he could observe at peace, he is given the ability to transform into random characters. Fine. Now, for some reason, which I still didn't find to be very plausible, the scholar decides that Aphrodite is going to kill him the very next day. He's got only 24 hours to live. So what does he do? He morphs into Paris and goes to have sex with Helen of Troy. Yes, you've read that right. Now, technically, this is rape. And to be clear, I am ok with reading rape scenes, as long as they're portrayed as, well, as rape scenes, but here, it feels that it is even supposed to be humourous, like LOL, that's what everyone would do, YOLO.

Now, if I wasn't put off by that enough, wait there's more. Helen, somehow figures out he's not really Paris, and confronts him, so he explains who he is and asks her how did she know. Turns out, he's a much better shag. Yes, much better.

If you haven't rolled your eyes to death by now, wait there's more. He also has a bigger dick. WHAT?? He morphed into Paris ffs!! How can he possibly have a bigger dick? That makes no sense. And no explanation ever will be good enough for me to accept that this is fine. What a shameless and pitiful self-insert!

And it all went downhill from there, really. I couldn't wait to finish this book and never look back. There were more random bits later on that didn't make much sense, the relationships between the characters felt so fake and shallow, even though they were supposed to be deeper than at the beginning. The ending was abrupt, and I know there's part two, but I am so not going to read it, as I so don't care about what happens to any of those people/robots/creatures. ...more

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Dec 14, 2017 SAM rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2018, high-fantasy

Just like Hyperion you're thrown into the middle of complex plot with no point of reference. There's unfamiliar words, odd sounding places and the live battle of Troy being overseen by a 21st Century teacher. Having prior knowledge of said battle isn't really a requirement. My only insight was the underrated Brad Pitt film, which did me just fine. (yes, i said underrated. I loved it!)

It took around 300-350 pages until i finally started to get into this book. Up until then it just felt clunky and ...more

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Jun 23, 2010 Mitch rated it it was ok

Shelves: science-fiction

In spite of the violent content, I really like Dan Simmons' Hyperion and its sequel.

This book looked like it had potential. For reasons unknown, the Greek gods are kicking it on Mars and the Trojan War is being fought with a lot of their participation.

Now the book starts throwing in all sorts of sci-fi wonders...nice, but not enough to save this.

First- it's far too detailed and has too many repeated references to the Iliad. Second, some seriously unbelievable things happen several times. And th ...more

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Aug 10, 2009 Jason rated it really liked it

Shelves: e-books, read-2009

Dan Simmons, one of my favorite authors. This book has it all, it has the Trojans, Troy, and the Iliad. Aliens, robots, and Gods of all sizes. This book is a blast to read and will appeal to fantasy readers, science fiction readers, and even to historical fiction readers. A must read.

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Mar 04, 2013 Katharina rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favourites, science-fiction, fantasy, history

Holy bloody freakin' incredible hell. Or Hades. Whatever. I'm... I have no words. Seriously. This was beyond brilliant. I don't know who took Dan Simmon's brain, drugged it up, sprinkled it with colours and glitter to come up with THAT but please do it again. Often.

Ilium is a wild mixture of science-fiction, fantasy, a history (or should I say literature?) lesson, and awesomeness. And it's only the first part - don't think you can get in other books between Ilium and its sequel Olympos (I wante Holy bloody freakin' incredible hell. Or Hades. Whatever. I'm... I have no words. Seriously. This was beyond brilliant. I don't know who took Dan Simmon's brain, drugged it up, sprinkled it with colours and glitter to come up with THAT but please do it again. Often.

Ilium is a wild mixture of science-fiction, fantasy, a history (or should I say literature?) lesson, and awesomeness. And it's only the first part - don't think you can get in other books between Ilium and its sequel Olympos (I wanted to, but now I can't).

In Ilium, you follow three different, but somehow converging story lines. The first one is that of scholar Hockenberry, Ilias expert, originally from the 20th/21st century, dead and revived by the old Greek Gods and taken to the Olymp - or at least the Olympos Mons on Mars. Yes, you've heard right, the old Greek Gods. Zeus, Hera, Athene, Aphrodite, Apollo, and the whole rest, augmented by nanotechnology, quantum teleportation, and lots of other interesting stuff. And why would the Greek Gods want Hockenberry and other scholars to live? Because the Ilias is happening right at this moment, and Zeus wants them to look for any discrepancies between Homer's opus and the real life happenings. And it IS real life. You get Achilles and Hector and Helena and the rest of the whole bunch - and they fight and slaughter and kill to the best of their abilities.

The second story line starts pretty far away from all these events - to be precise on the Jupiter moon Europa. There, a few biomechanical, intelligent, technologically highly advanced, conscious Moravecs - further enhancements of robots brought by humans to the outer Solar System - are worried because of the massive quantum disturbances they detect on Mars. So, they send out a small group of Moravecs to have a look at what's going on there, and to stop it if necessary. Part of the four-Moravec-crew are best friends Mahnmut, a little Moravec originally stationed in the deep sea on Europa and Shakespeare fan, and Orphu, a high vacuum Moravec from Jupiter's moon Io and Proust aficionado. While their journey is peaceful, their welcome committee isn't so much, and soon Mahnmut and Orphu have to put together every creative shred of their mostly synthetic bodies to get their mission done.

The third story line is earth-bound and deals with humans as we know them. Or almost. Served by servitors and voynixes (I have no idea about the English names, since I've read it in German, but that's not really important anyhow, is it? ;-D), the human race has become complacent and dull. The few human exemplars still living have forgotten how to read, how to care, and how to ask questions. Living lives focused on party, sex, and food, freed of the fear of any sudden and permanent death, and fed with stories about their afterlife and the eternal normalcy of their behaviour, they know nothing about the world they live in. But Harman, on the verge of reaching the age of 100 and therefore destined to die soon, is not satisfied. Hungry for life, he cannot accept his close demise and looks for answers in a world that doesn't know questions. On his quest, he takes with him Ada, Daeman, and Hannah - and finds Savi, the only human existing who is old enough to still remember a different world. Who can guide them along on a dangerous path to see for themselves what this world of theirs is made of. Where are the "Post-humans"? Why do humans live to a hundred and no longer? Why are they cared for like children? And who or better what are these voynixes?

Aside from the craziness of the story itself, here is what I loved the most about it: the character portrayals and the perfectly thought through details. I loved Mahnmut and Orphu who, probably deliberately, defy their inhuman and synthetic exterior and have the most touching, human, and incredibly caring conversations (and show the behaviour and actions to match them) in the entire book. I enjoyed Daeman's development - a complete ignorant and arrogant idiot at first who in the fight for his own life and the life of others finds a strength in himself that he - and I as the reader - would have never thought him capable of. I loved how the Greek fighting scenes sounded so very Greek because they always began with a minute listing of who was where and said and did what. I enjoyed the fact that so much wasn't explained, that I had to just accept all the details at first and only later started to understand what they meant, how things worked together. How the whole world functioned. I had so many hypotheses while reading about where it was really set, what the time course might be, and I still have no idea now, but I LOVED all that. That I had to work, too, didn't only consume, but tried to interpret all the clues I got and still didn't manage to make up a coherent picture. And I still always felt that there WAS a coherent picture, I just didn't/couldn't see it.

This is so very much recommended to anyone who thinks he/she could enjoy such a story, really let go and dive in. Because this book is brilliant. Especially the last 50 to 100 pages. Seriously. And now I'm off reading Olympos. ...more

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May 15, 2019 Gillian Brownlee rated it liked it

Shelves: science-fiction

I’m still not quite sure what’s going on, but I’ll read the next book.

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About Dan Simmons

Dan Simmons

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Dan Simmons grew up in various cities and small towns in the Midwest, including Brimfield, Illinois, which was the source of his fictional "Elm Haven" in 1991's SUMMER OF NIGHT and 2002's A WINTER HAUNTING. Dan received a B.A. in English from Wabash College in 1970, winning a national Phi Beta Kappa Award during his senior year for excellence in fiction, journalism and art.

Dan received his Master Dan Simmons grew up in various cities and small towns in the Midwest, including Brimfield, Illinois, which was the source of his fictional "Elm Haven" in 1991's SUMMER OF NIGHT and 2002's A WINTER HAUNTING. Dan received a B.A. in English from Wabash College in 1970, winning a national Phi Beta Kappa Award during his senior year for excellence in fiction, journalism and art.

Dan received his Masters in Education from Washington University in St. Louis in 1971. He then worked in elementary education for 18 years—2 years in Missouri, 2 years in Buffalo, New York—one year as a specially trained BOCES "resource teacher" and another as a sixth-grade teacher—and 14 years in Colorado.

ABOUT DAN
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His last four years in teaching were spent creating, coordinating, and teaching in APEX, an extensive gifted/talented program serving 19 elementary schools and some 15,000 potential students. During his years of teaching, he won awards from the Colorado Education Association and was a finalist for the Colorado Teacher of the Year. He also worked as a national language-arts consultant, sharing his own "Writing Well" curriculum which he had created for his own classroom. Eleven and twelve-year-old students in Simmons' regular 6th-grade class averaged junior-year in high school writing ability according to annual standardized and holistic writing assessments. Whenever someone says "writing can't be taught," Dan begs to differ and has the track record to prove it. Since becoming a full-time writer, Dan likes to visit college writing classes, has taught in New Hampshire's Odyssey writing program for adults, and is considering hosting his own Windwalker Writers' Workshop.

Dan's first published story appeared on Feb. 15, 1982, the day his daughter, Jane Kathryn, was born. He's always attributed that coincidence to "helping in keeping things in perspective when it comes to the relative importance of writing and life."

Dan has been a full-time writer since 1987 and lives along the Front Range of Colorado—in the same town where he taught for 14 years—with his wife, Karen, his daughter, Jane, (when she's home from Hamilton College) and their Pembroke Welsh Corgi, Fergie. He does much of his writing at Windwalker—their mountain property and cabin at 8,400 feet of altitude at the base of the Continental Divide, just south of Rocky Mountain National Park. An 8-ft.-tall sculpture of the Shrike—a thorned and frightening character from the four Hyperion/Endymion novels—was sculpted by an ex-student and friend, Clee Richeson, and the sculpture now stands guard near the isolated cabin. ...more

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Quotes from Ilium

“Rage.

Sing, O Muse, of the rage of Achilles, of Peleus’ son, murderous, man-killer, fated to die, sing of the rage that cost the Achaeans so many good men and sent so many vital, hearty souls down to the dreary House of Death. And while you’re at it, Muse, sing of the rage of the gods themselves, so petulant and so powerful here on their new Olympos, and of the rage of the post-humans, dead and gone though they might be, and of the rage of those few true humans left, self-absorbed and useless though they have become. While you are singing, O Muse, sing also of the rage of those thoughtful, sentient, serious but not-so-close-to-human beings out there dreaming under the ice of Europa, dying in the sulfur ash of Io, and being born in the cold folds of Ganymede.

Oh, and sing of me, O Muse, poor born-against-his-will Hockenberry, dead Thomas Hockenberry, Ph.D., Hockenbush to his friends, to friends long since turned to dust on a world long since left behind. Sing of my rage, yes, of my rage, O Muse, small and insignificant though that rage might be when measured against the anger of the immortal gods, or when compared to the wrath of the god-killer Achilles.

On second though, O Muse, sing nothing of me. I know you. I have been bound and servant to you, O Muse, you incomparable bitch. And I do not trust you, O Muse. Not one little bit.” — 44 likes

“Want to talk about Shakespeare's sonnets?" asked Orphu of Io.

Are you shitting me?" The moravecs loved the ancient human colloquial phrases, the more scatological the better.

Yes," said Orphu. "I am most definitely shitting you, my friend.” — 33 likes

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